Page 85 of Witchbane

Hugo appeared directly in my path. His tailored suit and flowing hair portrayed a gentleman of years long past. I should never have hesitated. This time I didn’t, turning the panic to rage.

I leapt at him, expecting to sink my tiny fangs and claws into him.

It made sense then that something else latched on to him. The pain, exhaustion, and need to feed, I realized. They’d spent weeks draining me. Maybe even months that last time. Wesley had said I’d vanished for a few months as he’d lost track of me. My kitsune had been starved, away fromApaand his pack, without any other anchors to help ground it. The vampires had been feeding on my power, the strength acquired over years of being bonded toApaandApa’spack locked away until my human body began to fail, and it rose up to fight back.

I was done with memories I didn’t want, which led to needing to escape to find new ones to create. When I’d first found myself in his grasp it had been easy to submit. Not anymore.

The weaker I got, the more the kitsune fought, I realized. Forcing me to remember small bits of that last brutal night, and the kiss of my mate, which called to us both. It was an awakening. A temptation of things yet to come. Liam’s pull on me dragging me out of the magic mess long before I could even call him mine. I needed to kiss him stupid. It was a need to get to him and be wrapped in his warmth that had unleashed the power this night.

Now I could feel an endless stretch of vampires, hundreds perhaps, large for a vampire coven, and even further down to the fae. Those they fed on, and those tied to them. I kept following the thread, the memory, down until I could see the end, the tipping of power, the one on the top.

My drain on them stretched far enough that something reached out and severed the line to them. Breaking the power, leaving Hugo floundering for strength, and snapping me away from them with the ability to run.

I had run that day. Racing away in my fox form, filled with pulsing energy and anxiety that the vampires were coming for me. Overwhelmed and exhausted, I’d gotten to the state line and had collapsed. Which was where Al had found me. He was tied to Hugo. I knew that from the first touch. But he hadn’t been drained down by my power, and he shoved my exhausted fox ass into the back seat of his car before he drove, taking us north, and farther away.

Buried memories were suddenly alive within me. A jumble of thoughts, images, and vague impressions, all shifting and rolling into broken bits of the past rolling through my head. Had the fae altered my memories? Or had my trauma buried it all?

I heard a door open behind me, and realized I was in a room somewhere that looked more like the grungy remains of a smoker’s dwelling. The taint of cigarette smoke lingered, stale and wafting from years of accumulation in the walls, and beneath all that, under the metallic scent of blood pooling from the vampire in my grasp, was death. Others had died in this room. How many others I couldn’t begin to fathom. And they wouldn’t be the last. Not as I saw a flicker of hope appear in Hugo’s eyes when he saw who entered the room behind me.

And really it didn’t matter who came in because I was done being anyone’s puppet. The curse was gone, it no longer dug thorns into me feeding on my memories of pain, and sucking on all the power I absorbed. The sawing at the bond between Liam and me ached, but I thickened the bond, sending energy into it, even as I latched onto Hugo’s power again.

I heard thethwapof a dart gun discharge half a second before the dart hit me. It was a bit of a sting, like a bee, sudden and sharp in my shoulder, and instantly I began to feel the drugs dragging me down. I blinked into Hugo’s smug face. He was injured, but not dead. Vampires could heal a lot of damage, especially when they fed on the blood of the fae. And from Hugo’s expression, I was pretty sure he meant me to be his next meal. The worst part of that was that it wouldn’t be me anymore. It was anyone tied to me. Liam, the pack, and Ari.

The world began to swirl around me as the drugs ran through me, my racing heart delivering the concoction faster. No. Fucking no!

The kitsune claws began to retract and I panicked, grasping for that power. I had to protect Ari. The idea of Hugo feeding on my baby turned the panic to rage. Not while I was alive. And since they’d drugged me again, I assumed they wanted me alive.

I released the kitsune, and had a vision of it erupting from me like a sea serpent rising from the ocean, tentacles reaching for everyone.Release the Kraken!I thought with a bit of a crazy laugh while the power burst from me, latching on to not one vampire, but a half dozen including Hugo, and sucking down their energy.

My human side seemed to be losing, vision tunneling down again, while the kitsune took control. I wasn’t sure that was a good idea, since the kitsune didn’t always seem to recognize friend from enemy, and I knew Liam was close. But the cold power of the vampires began to fill the kitsune with an icy strength. Odd how I went back and forth from fire to ice.

You are what you eat,Ari’s little voice whispered through my mind. I felt their hands on me again, soothing, clarifying, but also encouraging the kitsune.We can get to Papa.

I was all for getting to Liam, but my vision was wobbly at best. The kitsune solidified around me, feeling real, like the fox, only much larger. The flailing energy of the vampires had them all on the floor writhing in pain, little more than husks of human shaped shells. A few more darts landed in my side, stinging for a second, and annoying.

I turned toward the vampire who’d been in the doorway. He still gripped the gun, even when he looked like a mummy a thousand years dehydrated. A wailing sound came from his lips, like a dried scream he couldn’t quite clear from his lungs. He aimed the gun at me, but it had already discharged whatever had been loaded.

Look away, I told Ari, not wanting my baby to watch as I used my kitsune jaws to stop the noise. One down, a half dozen to go. Vampires were hard to kill, but there wasn’t much that could survive having its head separated from its body.

They still made a bit of a mess. Not as terrible as if they’d still been filled with power and fae blood. But bone and flesh tearing was never clean.

The vampires tasted foul. Stale, old, dead blood. Cold and lifeless. Whatever magic fueled the vampire did not appeal to my kitsune. More like eating slugs, a bit slimy and congealed. I spit out their sludge, rather than swallowing it, and shoved the power toward Ari, who seemed to absorb it with little effort.

The drugs continued to swirl and tilt my vision. Almighty power I was not. I suspected only the kitsune’s strength was keeping me on my feet.

When the room fell silent, and only one vampire remained, I stared into Hugo’s face, his smugness gone, but he still lived. And I was done with him and his kind. Tired of being chased, of watching my back, and of being a juice box of some sort of supernatural energy to them.

I picked him up in my teeth, careful not to break him in half even though I wanted to. He yelped and struggled, despite being little more than a dry shell of what he’d been. His power hadn’t even been a snack to my kitsune anymore. I was hungry. Like really hungry. Hungry enough to eat a cheap burger. Or a heart attack squirrel.

I thought of my mate. Felt him close, and followed the bond, out of the room, having to squeeze through doorways far too small for my kitsune. The house wasn’t all that different from Hugo’s last manor, though I knew it wasn’t the same place. I stumbled down the stairs, vision still wonky. Trying to keep from going ass over teakettle, the drugs battling the kitsune awareness for a grip on my consciousness.

Sorry. I told Ari when I fell against the wall and had to steady myself for a second.Drugs.

Ari’s ghost-like presence held on tight, kissed the back of my neck and I felt warmth expand. Ari pushed back the darkness, though it seemed a constant struggle, as it kept rolling forward, a swirl like water mixing with silt.

I headed toward the door, following the stretch of my bond, needing Liam. The sounds of fighting, werewolf snarls and screams grew closer as I got to what looked like the front door. The vampires must have abandoned the house to fight the wolves, which meant it was dark outside. But I didn’t sense Liam among them. However, they were pack. I could feel Carl close, and Stacey and Leigh, even Benton fought, tearing into vampires, drawn by the pack bond to my location. The vampires must have hidden somewhere close. It made me wonder how they’d found me.

There were a lot of wolves. I felt them expanded over a giant distance, all moving through the bond like some giant power grid. Some to keep any vampires from fleeing, others to take down the ones who fought.